Thanks to the diligent work of the Center for Spatial Research at Columbia University and a generous grant from Columbia World Project’s Center for Political Economy, Cities of Bail is now live and able to be explored. Check out the exploration page for Albuquerque, New Mexico, here. More cities, data, and analysis, particularly from criminal charging records, will be posted in the coming weeks.

Many thanks to Henry Goldberg, CLS ’23, for his assistance with census data and ArcGIS mapping. Here is an initial map of around 650 mortgages securing bail bonds in Newark (Essex County) and Jersey City (Hudson County), New Jersey, from the year 2000 until major bail reforms were implemented in the 2017. The map is shaded by density of African American population according to the most recent census data. More work forthcoming in the Cities of Bail project, which will soon be hosted by the Center for Spatial Research at Columbia University.

Initial map of 800 mortgages used to secure a bail bond in Albuquerque, NM between 2000 and 2020 for the Cities of Bail project.